Rater's Ridiculously Rambunctious Random Ranter #229

[Peelee]

Darn it, I hate free trials.

Free trials/demos of games used to be amazing. I could tell if I wanted to actually get a game or not.

[Lord Raziere]

I'd wait: Apparently even on a PC optimized for gaming Cyberpunk 2077 still has some... issues.

"It's not even been out a week and the company is already offering refunds directly" type issues.

PEr commentary from Penny Arcade, the game seems to have been released before it was done.

Yeah I've seen some streams of it. *shudder*

Definitely waiting on this game for it clear up its issues. It looks fantastic visually but not something I'm going to pick up until its optimized and all its bugs are fixed.

[Qwertystop]

I should look that up For Specific Reasons...

https://what-if.xkcd.com/141/

[Bartmanhomer]

If you're legitimately sorry, I would say you at least have to delete the video. The public post would be nice but is not strictly necessary.

I have to make a decision now.

[Anonymouswizard]

Free trials/demos of games used to be amazing. I could tell if I wanted to actually get a game or not.

Oh, I still love demos and the like, I really need to try more of them. It's free trials of services that cause problems, because it's so hard to remember to cancel after 29 days.


Randall Monroe (I believe that's his name) seems to have stopped updating the What If blog in order to concentrate on releasing such content in books. Like What If? or How To, the latter of which I probably prefer just due to the absurd situations or has to assume.

[BisectedBrioche]

Indie games are still happy to use demos, thankfully. Especially if they need a proof-of-concept while they're trying to generate buzz.

Although a lot have an annoying habit of time locking said demos, so you can only play them up to a certain date.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah, there's another game I was considering trying, only costs half as much as C2077, and it looks like it has a demo. Will likely try that when I get home.

And I do get why demos are becoming rarer, it is additional development time to make them, but getting to try twenty minutes to an hour of intended gameplay experience is useful to purchasers. Especially when I don't have to go over to Steam Support and all for a refund.

[BisectedBrioche]

Yeah, there's another game I was considering trying, only costs half as much as C2077, and it looks like it has a demo. Will likely try that when I get home.

And I do get why demos are becoming rarer, it is additional development time to make them, but getting to try twenty minutes to an hour of intended gameplay experience is useful to purchasers. Especially when I don't have to go over to Steam Support and all for a refund.

Yeah, I tried the demo for an indie game called ANNO:Mutationem, and I was pretty impressed (it has a very stylish art direction). The demo's already down now, though. v-v

[Rater202]

I once jokingly quoted a line from Skyrim, "When life gives you lemons, go murder a clown*," when a teacher asked for unusual turns of phrase for a lesson.

That was how I learned that this teacher was afraid of clowns. She was disturbingly eager to get in on that clown killing.

This teacher was in charge of graduation that year, and a friend and I talked about hiring a clown to sit in the audience and stand up and wave during the ceremony.

We couldn't find a clown on short notice though, and in hindsight... Yeah, I think my friend and I were *****.

Not in general, but just for having that idea. Glad we didn't do it.

(Granted, this was one of the teachers who have my trouble, but that had been two years before and she was a lot better the second time I had her.)

*It makes sense in context.

[The Fury]

With regards to the glitches and bugs in Cyberpunk 2077... I've seen them, they don't appear to be game-breaking some of them are actually funny. I guess if you find that sort of thing annoying, maybe wait until some patches are released.

In a weird way, it's kind of appropriate when you compare it to the tabletop RPG that it's based on. Ever notice that groups that loved that game played a version that was heavily house-ruled or banned certain character classes? It's also kind of funny that most people I talk to seem to think I'm making up the "based on a tabletop RPG" side of the game.

[Rawhide]

In a weird way, it's kind of appropriate when you compare it to the tabletop RPG that it's based on. Ever notice that groups that loved that game played a version that was heavily house-ruled or banned certain character classes?

We only banned one class for players, and it's not because they were OP, it's because when you netrun, everyone else may as well go get pizza or something.

It's also kind of funny that most people I talk to seem to think I'm making up the "based on a tabletop RPG" side of the game.

Tell them to go buy the books for ridiculously cheap on Humble Bundle.

[The Fury]

We only banned one class for players, and it's not because they were OP, it's because when you netrun, everyone else may as well go get pizza or something.

Oh, none of the classes groups like to ban are OP, they just were frustrating to have around. As you said, Netrunners take up pretty much the entire session. Nomads effectively act like Fixers but in a way that's extremely situational. The only class that feels like it could be described as OP is the Solo, but banning them makes the game unplayable.

A frustration that I've always had with the game is that, "Oh, Cyberpunk 2020 is an awesome game if you implement these houserules and ban these classes, it's a lot of fun!" is not the glowing endorsement the game's fans seem to think it is.

[DataNinja]

And I do get why demos are becoming rarer, it is additional development time to make them, but getting to try twenty minutes to an hour of intended gameplay experience is useful to purchasers. Especially when I don't have to go over to Steam Support and all for a refund.

From what I understand, though, developers tend to be incentivised to not make demos. Because if it's a mediocre or actively bad demo, then you've probably lost a sale even from someone who was previously planning on buying it. So, yeah. It's additional development time that, if done wrong, can break the entire product's chances.

[Tvtyrant]

I seem to recall there was a mistake where a developer didn't want to make a demo, so they shipped the whole game as a demo with an easily removable lock from the main game.

[tyckspoon]

I seem to recall there was a mistake where a developer didn't want to make a demo, so they shipped the whole game as a demo with an easily removable lock from the main game.

I hope it wasn't this simple, but I always get a kick out of stories where somebody assumes nobody will go look at easily human-readable text config files and the 'Demo lock' is just a line in a .ini that says 'IS DEMO = YES' or something.

[Tvtyrant]

I hope it wasn't this simple, but I always get a kick out of stories where somebody assumes nobody will go look at easily human-readable text config files and the 'Demo lock' is just a line in a .ini that says 'IS DEMO = YES' or something.

The one I remember is Crash Bash, which the whole game was actually inside another Spyro game as a demo and you could unlock it using a controller combination. Which is some really bad programming.

Apparently Yakuza 7 had a downloadable demo a few years ago that had the whole game in it s well.

[BisectedBrioche]

Today I have discovered:

1. My coffee addiction clearing up when I started HRT wasn't a coincidence.
2. Having to come off oestrogen for surgery's brought it back.

[Rater202]

So my circadian rythym is all screwed up: Sometimes I have normal hours but other times I'll be up until sometime the next morning and wake up in late afternoon/evening.

A pattern I've noticed is that as I finally get tired enough to fall asleep*, the fantasies about being a dragon sleeping in a pile of gold, being placed under anesthesia for a procedure that will make me superhuman, being encased in a cocoon and emerging later in a revitalized, stronger body, or something similar become much more frequent than they are when I am in a more rested state.

There's probably a reason for that correlation.

*If I am not tired, I cannot sleep.

[Bartmanhomer]

Well, I finally open a TikTok account and I got about 3 followers now.

[Anonymouswizard]

So I buckled and tried Stadia, specifically with the game Jotun. And it was fine, input lag wasn't noticeable compared to what I normally play on, the game ran at a solid 60, and while the first attempt cancelled itself after about three minutes I was happily able to beat the first level. I still need to try it with a more resource intensive game, but it certainly runs better than I thought.

But considering I expected massive pixellation it wasn't hard.

[Bartmanhomer]

So I buckled and tried Stadia, specifically with the game Jotun. And it was fine, input lag wasn't noticeable compared to what I normally play on, the game ran at a solid 60, and while the first attempt cancelled itself after about three minutes I was happily able to beat the first level. I still need to try it with a more resource intensive game, but it certainly runs better than I thought.

But considering I expected massive pixellation it wasn't hard.

Have you played Fenyx Immortal Rising? That's from Stadia as well.

[Xyril]

Have you played Fenyx Immortal Rising? That's from Stadia as well.

Do you mean that it's on Stadia? Fenyx is by Ubisoft.

I wouldn't nitpick you on the small typo, but I don't want people to get the mistaken impression that Stadia's internal development studio is actually putting out decent first-party content. They've got a couple of mediocre titles out, and they poached one of the founders of Ubisoft to run it, so they certainly have potential. But they haven't actually accomplished anything too praiseworthy yet.

[Bartmanhomer]

Do you mean that it's on Stadia? Fenyx is by Ubisoft.

I wouldn't nitpick you on the small typo, but I don't want people to get the mistaken impression that Stadia's internal development studio is putting out decent first-party content. They've got a couple of mediocre titles out, and they poached one of the founders of Ubisoft to run it, so they certainly have potential. But they haven't accomplished anything too praiseworthy yet.

Yes. That what I meant.

[Anonymouswizard]

For the record I've played one game on the platform so far. And I'm not in bed because my tummy hurts.

Oh, none of the classes groups like to ban are OP, they just were frustrating to have around. As you said, Netrunners take up pretty much the entire session. Nomads effectively act like Fixers but in a way that's extremely situational. The only class that feels like it could be described as OP is the Solo, but banning them makes the game unplayable.

A frustration that I've always had with the game is that, "Oh, Cyberpunk 2020 is an awesome game if you implement these houserules and ban these classes, it's a lot of fun!" is not the glowing endorsement the game's fans seem to think it is.

My main problem with Nomads is that logically their special resources should be impossible to access for large chunks of time because they're just nowhere near the city. It also annoys me because it's special ability is based on background rather than role, it should really get some bonus with vehicles.

Yeah, I get exactly what you mean. The flavour is great though, and if you hack Netrunning out with an axe the rest of the system is playable. Not great, but Fixers and Corporates don't need to spend entire sessions getting gear (RAW anyway).

Look, I'm a Scion 1e fan. 'Doesn't succeed at doing what it says in a way that makes it unplayable' isn't a hard bar to clear.

Maybe Red is better balanced? I don't know, I like 2.0.2.0. It was released before my time but three style and atmosphere are amazing. I own both Night City and all four Chromebooks because I need that flesh meets steel goodness.

How long until zi can get lens mounts over my eyes so I don't have to fiddle with glasses all the time? Heck, throw in a projector and Bluetooth connection so that I can connect to my phone and see both my messages and the current date/time.

I think people who find the idea of things like cybereyes weird have never had to deal with multiple vision defects.

[LaZodiac]

I once jokingly quoted a line from Skyrim, "When life gives you lemons, go murder a clown*," when a teacher asked for unusual turns of phrase for a lesson.

That was how I learned that this teacher was afraid of clowns. She was disturbingly eager to get in on that clown killing.

This teacher was in charge of graduation that year, and a friend and I talked about hiring a clown to sit in the audience and stand up and wave during the ceremony.

We couldn't find a clown on short notice though, and in hindsight... Yeah, I think my friend and I were *****.

Not in general, but just for having that idea. Glad we didn't do it.

(Granted, this was one of the teachers who have my trouble, but that had been two years before and she was a lot better the second time I had her.)

*It makes sense in context.

Any clown you hired who would accept this job is an insult to the craft. They have rules against this sort of thing!

That being said you definitely should have done it if possible this would have owned.

With regards to the glitches and bugs in Cyberpunk 2077... I've seen them, they don't appear to be game-breaking some of them are actually funny. I guess if you find that sort of thing annoying, maybe wait until some patches are released.

In a weird way, it's kind of appropriate when you compare it to the tabletop RPG that it's based on. Ever notice that groups that loved that game played a version that was heavily house-ruled or banned certain character classes? It's also kind of funny that most people I talk to seem to think I'm making up the "based on a tabletop RPG" side of the game.

It's less the glitches (though they are certainly bad, I've seen a lot worse than just the funny ones) that put me off the game so much as the brutal crunch and the uh... lets say questionable writing decisions.

[Rater202]

I have spent several days trying to calculate the odds of whether or not the mutagenic venom of a certain fictional spider would be more likely to kill me, turn me into a horrible monstrosity, or turn me into a physical specimen of the Olympion ideal and god-like strength all on rather sparse information.

I think I have a problem.

[enderlord99]

Bleakbane is a horrifying monstrosity, with godlike strength, that was killed at some point.

Maybe he could comment on this.

[Mystic Muse]

I think I have a problem.

Is your problem that the spider is fictional?

[Peelee]

I have spent several days trying to calculate the odds of whether or not the mutagenic venom of a certain fictional spider would be more likely to kill me, turn me into a horrible monstrosity, or turn me into a physical specimen of the Olympion ideal and god-like strength all on rather sparse information.

I think I have a problem.

Would you and the spider both be fictional characters in this scenario? Even odds on 2 or 3.

Would you and the spider both be real in this scenario? 0% chance of 2 or 3.

[Rater202]

Would you and the spider both be fictional characters in this scenario? Even odds on 2 or 3.

Would you and the spider both be real in this scenario? 0% chance of 2 or 3.

I'm operating on an assumption that I've gone to the spider rather than the spider coming to me, becuase it's canon in the setting that the spider would turn into a normal common house spider if it came to me

If it came to me... I'm not allergic to house spiders, so it'd be irritating at worst.